Life

David Thouless was born in Bearsden, Scotland. After studies at Cambridge University he received a PhD from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, in 1958. His supervisor was the future Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe. After stays at University of California, Berkeley and Cambridge University he became a professor at the University of Birmingham in 1965. After a few years at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, he became a professor at the University of Washington, Seattle in 1980. David Thouless is married with three children.

Work

Matter occurs in different phases, for example as a gas, liquid or solid. At very low temperatures unusual phases, such as superconductivity or superfluidity, may also occur. In the early 1970s David Thouless and Michael Kosterlitz used the concepts of topology, a branch of mathematics, to describe phase transitions in thin layers at low temperatures. Later, David Thouless also explained the quantum Hall effect, stepwise shifts in electrical conductivity in thin layers.